Eco Audit White Paper. - Granta Design

6. Summary and conclusionsEco aware product design has many aspects,one of which is the choice of materials.Materials are energy intensive, with highembodied energies and associated carbonfootprints. Seeking to use low-energymaterials might appear to be one way forward,but this can be misleading. Material choiceimpacts manufacturing, it influences theweight of the product and its thermal andelectrical characteristics and thus the energy itconsumes during use, and it influences thepotential for recycling or energy recovery atthe end of life. It is full-life energy that we seekto minimize.Doing so requires a two-part strategy outlinedin this White Paper. The first part is an ecoaudit: a quick, approximate assessment of thedistribution of energy demand and carbonemission over life. This provides inputs toguide the second part: that of materialselection to minimize the energy and carbonover the full life, balancing the influences ofthe choice over each phase of life. This WhitePaper describes an Eco Audit Tool thatenables the first part. It is fast and easy touse, and although approximate, it deliversinformation with sufficient precision to enablethe second part of the strategy to beperformed, drawing on the same databases(available with CES EduPack). The use of thetool is illustrated with diverse case studies.The Eco Audit Tool does not provide a fullLCA, as such detail would come at a penaltyof complexity and difficulty of use that wouldrender it impractical as a design tool. Theversion available in CES EduPack wasdesigned for educational use, with somefurther simplifications relative to the EnhancedEco Audit Tool available for industry andresearch; simplicity, in teaching, is itself avaluable feature.Granta plans to develop the tool further andwelcomes ideas, criticisms, and commentsfrom users 5 .5 Comments can be sent on-line by using the “Featurerequest” option in the CES EduPack software toolbar.The CES EduPack Eco Audit Tool 16 © 2012, Granta Design